Details of Jockey Lot shooting emerge

A public defender representing the teenager charged in the 2014 shooting death of a Jockey Lot flea market employee said Friday the shooter was identified twice as someone else.

New details about the incident emerged Friday at a court hearing on various motions in the first-degree murder case against Earl Joseph III, now 17, who is accused in the Feb. 2, 2014, death of Michael Patin, 49.

At the time, a spokesman with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office said deputies responded to a 9:14 p.m. call of a theft in progress at the Jockey Lot flea market at 3011 NW Evangeline Thruway involving five young, black males. The caller said the suspects attempted to leave in a vehicle but crashed and fled the property on foot. The vehicle had been reported stolen days earlier.

Deputies and other police officers captured four juveniles near the Jockey Lot and left the scene around 11:05 p.m. They were called back at 11:12 p.m. about the shooting of Patin and the theft of his vehicle. Joseph and another juvenile were captured the next day.

Public defender G. Paul Marx said in court Friday that the first incident that evening at the Jockey Lot was a confrontation. He said a young man drove to the business and several others showed up and allegedly attempted to burglarize the place.

Several adults, possibly with guns, interacted with the juveniles, trying to stop them from leaving by blocking a gate, Marx said. He described it as an attempted citizens arrest.

That's apparently when the boys crashed the vehicle and fled the scene on foot, hiding nearby.

There are indications two of the juveniles identified someone other than Joseph as the person with the gun, and investigators obtained two different identifications of the person who allegedly shot Patin, Marx said.

Fifteenth Judicial District Judge Patrick Michot on Friday denied the defense attorneys' request to throw out the indictment against Joseph, who was treated as an adult once indicted, which is allowed in Louisiana for anyone 15 years old and up. Joseph turned 15 two days before the shooting.

A $1 million bond was set for Joseph, who has been held with adult offenders at Lafayette Parish Correctional Center since his indictment a few days after the shooting. His trial is set for July 11.